Stewart Lee on his Comedy Vehicle

Man behind Fist of Fun (with Richard Herring) and Jerry Springer - The Opera is back on screen in his own 'Comedy Vehicle'

Stewart Lee, widely regarded as one of the UK's most influential live performers by comedians from big names such as Ricky Gervais to newcomers such as Josie Long, ended his stand-up career in 2000 shortly after a gig in Fulham where a bloke kept shouting: "Tell more jokes! We've paid to hear jokes!"

"I thought, it's not even fair that I'm here," he recalls. "They've got every right - I'm not what they want." Flick forward seven years and during the Edinburgh Festival that same comedian is holding an audience of more than 400 spellbound with a routine that, on paper, should fail every single time.

The show is called 41st Best Stand-Up Ever, and he's riffing on a Channel 4 poll that voted him into that hallowed spot, above the late, much-missed Irish comedian Dave Allen, Steve Martin and Tommy Cooper. One of Lee's points is that these polls cannot